The bigger the lie: Fund-raising video invents '$3000 fine for being gay in Russia'

The Sochi Olympics has attracted many protests. One, the Fair Games Project, launched an awareness campaign to support Russia’s LGBT community with a high-profile ad asserting that being gay in Russia costs $3,000 in fines… Wait, really?

The Fair Games Project sent out their Public Service Announcement, titled “Russia
Declares Discrimination Newest Olympic Sport,” on February 6, a
day ahead of the Sochi opening ceremony.

In the clip, scenes of a happy gay couple celebrating a birthday
and subsequent marriage proposal are followed by the same two men
violently beaten on a football pitch by players to general
applause, as a crowd of viewers wave Russian flags.

The two-minute video, which also features the song "Freedom" by
King Avriel, concludes with an ominous caption reading: “In
Russia, the punishment for being gay is a $3,000 fine.” A
series of slides lists other countries such as Saudi Arabia,
Uganda and Iran, where being gay is a crime. Various types of
punishment, ranging from imprisonment to public stoning, are
recounted.

To stir supporters into action, the Fair Games Project encourages
donations to The
Russia Freedom Fund – an organization described on its
website as “a US tax deductible vehicle for making financial
contributions in support of the LGBT movement in Russia and
efforts to combat discrimination and violence there based on
sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Given the Western media efforts to portray “evil Russia” as a
hell for gays ahead of the Olympics, the video was apparently
meant to add a little bit of extra fuel to the fire. Who cares
that there is not such a thing in the Russian law as a fine for
being gay, or that homosexuality was decriminalized in the country in 1993?

Saying that it is so, perhaps, adds to the drama – as well as to
the chances of achieving the goal of raising $15,000 to pay
filmmakers’ expenses and more for the Fund. According to the
Huffington Post, the clip is part of an ambitious campaign to
collect as much as $1 million by the time the Games close.
However, neither Russia Freedom Fund’s website, nor the Fair
Games Project’s webpage, mentions $1 million as a goal.

But the authors of the clip do mention a considerable sum of
money one “has to pay” for being gay, which hardly corresponds
with the fines cited in Russia’s controversial law on gay
propaganda toward minors.

The law behind the fuss and the ongoing hysteria was adopted last
summer. It bans “propaganda of non-traditional relationships
to minors.” Non-traditional sexual relationships were
informally defined by lawmakers as those that cannot lead to the
production of offspring. The law levies a fine of up to 50,000
rubles (about $1,500) on individuals, and up to 1 million rubles
(about $30,000) on organizations. If you add the use of the media
or the Internet here, this will finally give you a sum of roughly
$3,000 for those people judged to be propagating.

While the law appears to have gaping loopholes such as, for
instance, what exactly constitutes gay propaganda, its fiercest
critics have apparently decided to cut to the chase, and dub the
document simply an “anti-gay law.”

The legislation dominated the world’s press in the run-up to
Sochi. For many, the world’s biggest sporting event, which
athletes and millions of fans had been waiting for over the last
four years, became yet another occasion to cast a stone in
Russia’s direction over the LGBT issue.

US internet giant Google added to the chorus of Western
criticisms by updating its search page with a new doodle,
depicting athletes set against a rainbow flag – the widely
recognized symbol of the LGBT community.

The page also included a quote from the Olympic Charter, which
declares: “Every individual must have the possibility of
practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the
Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit
of friendship, solidarity and fair play.”

Very true. And that is the principle that Russia has followed. Or
does Google know of any athletes or guests who have been
discriminated against in Sochi, or denied a visa ahead of the
Games, because of their sexual orientation?

The Lotus Formula 1 team also gave in to the mass hype, posting a
tweet on the Games’ opening day wishing all athletes a successful
Olympics and accompanying the message with a photo of two kissing
men. Later in the day, Lotus apologized for the “unauthorized
message,” removed it and promised they would “ensure
this cannot happen again.”

We would like to sincerely apologise for an unauthorized
message posted on our Twitter account today & will ensure
this cannot happen again.

Sponsors of the Sochi Games – including global brands such as
Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Proctor & Gamble and Visa – also came
under fire from LGBT activists. Michael Cashman, an openly gay
member of the European Parliament from the UK, condemned the
sponsors and cut up his Visa credit card in protest.

But not all prominent LGBT athletes have taken a political stance
over Sochi. Some, such as Austrian ski jumper and LGBT rights
advocate Daniela Iraschko-Stolz, have said that public reaction
to the gay propaganda law has been exaggerated and that she wants
to focus on sport during the Games.

Asked whether she was worried about the law, Iraschko-Stolz said:
"No, on the contrary, I think everything is being blown up
bigger than it is. I had a very good welcome, like every other
athlete. There were absolutely no problems."

“I only want to focus on sports, and I think if you're
tolerant towards everyone else, they treat you the same way and
it gives you a lot of joy. I think you can make a statement by
jumping well,” added the 30-year-old athlete, who married
her lesbian partner last year.

Russian officials have meanwhile called for a halt in the media
hype. Seeking to allay fears that spectators
visiting the Games would be discriminated against, the Russian
government pledged that the law would not apply to visitors and participants
during the Games.

In Sochi, members of the LGBT community even voiced concerns that
western media coverage of the law may have a negative effect on gay people in Russia.

Tanychev said that he does not agree with the law, but added that
the gay community in Russia has largely been unaffected by the
new legislation. Both he and his partner believe that the
handling and publicity of the law by the Western press has been
“heavy-handed.”

Indeed, for various reasons – from cultural to historic – Russian
society is not 100 percent tolerant, tensions exist and the
propaganda law does not alleviate them. But neither do the piling
on the agony and the launching of anti-Russia propaganda
campaigns based on lies.

One of the fiercest critics of the Russian legislation, the US,
has similar laws, or the so-called “no promo homo” bans, in eight
of its states. An opinion article in The Washington Post
earlier in the year called for the repeal of these laws, which,
for instance, include Arizona’s ban on portrayals of
homosexuality as a “positive alternative lifestyle” and
Utah’s prohibition on “the advocacy of homosexuality.”

Meanwhile, the Fair Games Project video got over 550,000 views on
YouTube. But the question arises of where the money will go if
the campaign is based on a fabrication.

In fact, the real message of the video is not that discrimination
is Russia’s “Newest Olympic Sport.” Rather, it demonstrates a
completely different, not really new and totally un-Olympic
sport: Mudslinging.

Natalia Makarova, RT

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.